If you’ve ever been to a Los Angeles City Council meeting, you’ve almost certainly heard a profanity-laced racist diatribe during public comment.
City Council has been skittish about cracking down on obscene language and even hate speech because of the First Amendment. Years ago, a man who was expelled from a committee meeting for wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood sued the city on free speech grounds and won a $212,000 settlement.
But Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson is working on new rules that differentiate protected political speech from personal attacks.
“It is language that, anywhere outside this building where there aren't four armed guards, would get you hurt if you said these things in public, and much of it, much of it, one step outside the door would be considered a hate crime, certainly hate speech,” he told KNX News’ Craig Fiegener.
Harris-Dawson said he’s working with the city attorney and public interest and First Amendment attorneys to create rules that are “narrow enough to stand legal muster.”
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The original motion would allow people to be removed from City Council meetings for using just two obscene terms – let’s call them the N-word and the C-word – but Harris-Dawson expects committee members will “add more terms or more concepts” in the future.
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